


The Heart That Truly Loves

by Martienne



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Canon, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-06
Updated: 2015-04-17
Packaged: 2017-11-20 11:03:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 4,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/584692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Martienne/pseuds/Martienne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The heart that truly loves never forgets." Prompts from the 100 prompt challenge and from tumblr. Note that drabbles under these prompts are not in chronological order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Childhood 1-10

1\. _introduction:_

He hadn’t been allowed to cut the cord. They’d whisked the infant away instead and he stood nervously by, holding Allison’s hand as their baby is rubbed with towels and they make her cry. Allison’s face is lined but she doesn’t express anxiety, just waits, quietly, until a nurse places the baby in her arms. She seems to feel slightly awkward, trying to settle the baby against her bosom, which strikes Leonard as sort of cute; it’s not often she looks out of her element. Allison licks her lips before smiling just faintly and stroking the downy head with a finger. “She has your hair, Leonard,” she says, and that’s true until the baby’s hair falls and it comes in fiery red.

2\. _love:_

She never intended to become a mother, never knew what she’d do with a child, but she’s surprised by the fierceness of her affections. Tears of anger spring to her eyes when she hears about her daughter’s bully, and she immediately takes the girl to the backyard to spar. ‘Never, ever let someone tell you you’re less than what you are. You are amazing. You’re my daughter and that means you’re the most important girl in the world.’

3\. _light_ :

She doesn’t understand, of course, and they can’t explain it, but she looks fascinated as the candle flickers, the golden tones of it glimmering on her face and making the features of her face appear both blobby and angular as it dances. The two of them crowd next to her, eschewing the singing of the birthday song as trite, before blowing out the candle in unison.

4\. _dark_ :

Kisses are stolen in the light, accompanied by lingering touches, but it’s not until their toddler is in bed and the lights are turned out, most nights, that the two are able to meet, whispering to avoid waking the child, and repeating the ritual that brought the child into their lives in the first place; the comforting, familiar folding of their limbs as they fit together just so, the hungry touch of his palms as he smoothes them over her breasts, her strained gasp as she envelops him.

5\. _seeking solace_ :

When the news comes he’s unable to turn to the one person left, the one he should be closest to in the world, not until he manages to choke the news out to her, and she approaches to whimper and shudder against him, arms around his neck, but does not wail out for her mother as she begins to cry.

6\. _break away_ :

Her rebellion started at a younger age than many, influenced by the loss of both parents, one to death and the other to grief, and she becomes even more unruly when, already shattered and unable to bear her behavior, he sends her to live with his father, her grandfather. Lawrence is retired, is more patient, more understanding than his son, has more time for her. Afterward on visits with her father she holds this over his head.

7\. _heaven_ :

Bliss had been Saturday mornings with pancakes, warm syrup and fruit, him and Allison laughing at the antics of the baby as she clapped her hands and cooed, and Leonard thinks of those days, still longs for them, and wishes that year of stay-at-home motherhood had never ended.

8\. _innocence_ :

She knew her mother was a soldier, hadn’t been ignorant of the fact there was a war on or the fact that her mother’s career meant her life was in danger on a regular basis, but her mother’s death dropped the bottom out of any trust she’d had for things going the way they were supposed to.

9\. _dive_ :

In the aftermath of the breathless emergency room visit, of the setting of the bone and the tears and confusion, Allison has to admit that describing the job of an ODST in such detail to a six-year-old may not have been the best plan.

10\. _breathe again_ :

Allison is already coming running when that thud is followed by a breathless silence, seeing in her mind’s eye the child’s face indubitably screwed up in a voiceless scream. Once she calms the girl and Carolina falls into a sniffling sleep does she turn in ire to Leonard and ask him if he would have bothered to respond to that noise had she not been here. No, he isn’t a natural parent as she is but he isn’t utterly cold. He protests and retorts and she rants and stomps, but finally they make up and she sighs as he kisses her.


	2. Grief 11-16

**Prompts from the 100 prompt challenge**

11\. _memory_ :

Sometimes the sadness trickles through him, pencil-thin rivulets that irritate just enough keep him conscious of his loss as he goes about his day-to-day life.

But when the memories crash over him like waves, heedless of the way they’re pelting at him, the memories filter through like sand and cover his soul with a blackness that crushes the very breath from his lungs.

12\. _insanity_ :

He knows it isn’t rational, the way he clings to every scrap of everything she’s ever owned, ever touched, anything her scent remains on, and he definitely knows it shouldn’t be worth paying the moving fees when he goes over the weight limit on the transport for the move to Reach.

He pays them anyway.

13\. _misfortune_ :

It’s almost like he believes railing against the judgment of whatever fate rules the cosmos that this outcome is unfair will somehow undo it. Because she’s survived a hundred situations worse than the one that took her like and no stroke of bad luck deserved the honor of saying it had defeated her.

14\. _smile_ :

Their daughter had inherited Allison’s beautiful smile, and he can’t help the pang he feels the first time her smile returns after her mother’s death. One day he believes he will be able to smile with her again, be able to laugh with her again, but seeing her happy only reminds him that he has nothing but the ghost of a memory to cling to now.

15\. _silence_ :

She’s learned not to try to speak to him when he loses himself, staring blankly into space from the couch, and she no longer bothers to ask him to care for her when it is mealtime or when homework demands her attention. There are days she never even hears his voice until she manages to shake him from his reverie long enough to say good night.

16\. _questioning_ :

She understands death, is old enough to realize it is permanent, but she doesn’t understand the way the simple utterance of the word “why” seems to break her father, and she learns to search that question out on her own so she never has to see him reduced to a sobbing mess like that again.


	3. Construction 17-23

17.  _blood_ :  
  
She never played any way but hard, and he had long given up on telling her to be careful; this time he simply provides her with an ice pack and a bandage when she wipes out on his skateboard and scrapes her elbow all to hell.  
  
18.  _rainbow_ :  
  
They’d been caught in the rain, and she laughed and started to race through it, at first leaving him behind, but she slowed and took his hand and entangled their fingers, and didn’t protest when he planted his feet and pulled her against him for a long kiss.  
  
19.  _gray_ :  
  
He awoke before her and he rolled on his side to look at her and play lightly with her hair, imagining that they would grow old together.  
  
20.  _fortitude_ :  
  
He was strong, and he was stubborn, but she was ever so much more of everything than he was, and when he said there was no way he’d be able to handle her being gone for long swathes of the calendar her expression sobered and she made him look her in the eye and she told him that if she could handle it, then he could too. He hid his inner thoughts, swallowed back his protestations, and agreed.  
  
21.  _vacation_ :  
  
During her first leave he surprised her with a trip to the coast, accommodations courtesy of a newly purchased camping tent, and the first morning she hugged him and told him it was better than any hotel.  
  
22.  _mother nature_ :  
  
After the first time she learned not to tell him about her training, not to worry him with her tales of being left to fend for herself in a desert or in the woods. She didn’t elaborate on why it was necessary; an ODST dropped in the wrong place could find herself facing more dire circumstances than those.  
  
23.  _cat_ :  
  
When she fought, her movements were light, agile, almost feline. That wasn’t to say her hits were without power, but she was so quick, it almost didn’t matter. He felt vicarious satisfaction when she had won.


	4. No goodbye 24

24.  _no time_ :  
  
The first hint of it is there in the way she turns, her face blank with concentration, eyes far off, the list of details no doubt clicking through her mind as she rechecks her pack, prepares her weapon, dresses in her uniform. By the time he takes her up on her word there are only a few moments left, though she doesn’t go to any special effort to make it count, either. In fact she is as reluctant as ever to be recorded and he deadeyes her silently as she teases him for it. He had no way of knowing this would be not only his first but his last chance to capture her face like this, and in so many of the shots her mind is far away from him. He wishes in the aftermath of the news that comes weeks later that he hadn’t clicked off the record button each time he’d spoken, becoming almost petulant in asking her to live up to her word and utter some kind of farewell for him on film.  
  
It’s not until he obeys her instructions to tuck the recording device in a pocket that she sets her things down on the porch and wraps her arms around his neck. “You don’t think I’ll miss you,” she accuses, the lifted curve of one corner of her mouth letting him know she is teasing despite her deadpan tone.  
  
“I know you won’t,” he shoots back, gripping her waist, a little more than half-serious. “You’ll have your battles and your gun and that terrible mess hall food you’re always complaining about—”  
  
And there, irrevocably, along with the truly bitter memories that clip always brought him, was the sweetness of that last kiss.


	5. Safety

> Prompt: Leonard/Allison, building something

“Just hold that piece there and quit complaining,” Allison said.

Leonard rolled his eyes and straightened the end piece of the crib. “I’m not complaining, I just thought we should look at the directions before we put this together.” 

“Look, Leonard, there’s a diagram  _right there.”_ She offhandedly pointed at it with the screwdriver, not even sparing a glance at it, and squatted to begin inserting the lower screws.

"I’d feel better about that if you’d actually look at it.” She did seem to know what she was doing, though. Allison always had a sense about how these things worked. He watched closely, but he went on to follow her instructions and the crib was sturdy once she was done.

Allison came to stand next to Leonard where he was inspecting the end result of the project, shaking the rails. ”See?”she said. “She’ll be perfectly safe.” 

“Yeah,” he said. “I see.” He turned his head and she gave him a quick kiss. 


	6. Graduation

> Tell me a story where Allison lived.

Allison isn’t much for taking holostills or making video files. That’s always been Leonard’s department. But this is a special occasion, one that won’t be repeated.

“Stand closer together,” she encourages her husband and daughter, and they each move a half-step in each other’s direction.

Carolina smiles and Allison sets the camera off several times before she’s satisfied. “I’m so proud of you,” she says.

“It’s just the first step,” Carolina replies, reaching up to adjust her mortarboard. “I still have to get my master’s and my doctorate.”

“You’re perfectly capable of doing that,” Leonard says. “But you don’t have to work for me, you know. You can apply to work at other labs, if you want.”

“No, Dad. There’s a reason I went into the same field as you.”

“All right, I just wanted to make sure that was clear.” He approaches Allison and puts his arm around her shoulders. “Let’s get a few pictures of the two of you, as well.”

Allison smiles and kisses him before he releases her so that she can stand at Carolina’s side.

“All right, say cheese.”

Instead of smiling, the two women roll their eyes. “Really, Leonard?” Allison asks.

He grins. “Really. I won’t take the picture unless you do it.”

They roll their eyes again good-naturedly, but cooperate after that. In fact, Carolina seems to grin even wider than she normally does. She loves her father. He’s softer when Allison’s on leave, more willing to joke around and be relaxed. But that doesn’t diminish his work-ethic, his diligence, a quality Carolina has always admired. She’s aspired to be like him since she was young, and now she’s officially on that path.


	7. Chapter 7

> "I just really need to have you here right now."

There was a distinct hum on the line, and some part of Church dimly registered that it could mean this communication was being monitored. He wasn’t sure why he’d jumped to that conclusion, but with the way things went here in Blue Army, he wouldn’t have been surprised if there was someone keeping tabs on the troops. Despite that, he keyed in the code again, the code that was supposed to connect him to Tex’s radio.

“I know it’s you,” she said when she answered it, finally. “I’ve told you, you can’t just call me any time you want.”

He wanted to tell her how cold it was here, how lonely it was without her, how he missed seeing her since she’d gone off to join Project Freelancer. But instead he found himself unable to do anything but utter one request, a pitiful-sounding plea: “I just really need to have you here right now, Tex. I miss you.”

“You’re going to have to find some way to handle it on your own, Church,” she said. “I’m sure your right hand gets a little lonely, why don’t you show it some attention.”

“It’s not about wanting to fuck you, bitch.” He sighed. “I want a chance to be around you.”

“If you’re going to be like this, Church…I’m sorry, but we can’t be together anymore.”

Church was stunned into silence. It didn’t matter, because the hum stopped, signaling the fact that Tex had cut off the radio call.

The next time he saw her, she had just killed off everyone else on his base.

 


	8. Chapter 8

She led the way; trudging through the snow, his boots dragging along behind her, he called up to her. 

“Tex, wait,” he said. “Where are we going?”

She returned to his side. “You don’t remember?”

“No, what is there to remember?” he asked. “All I know is you shot everyone in my unit and then you started leading me through the snow.”

Her head was cocked slightly. "No one told you to follow me, Church. I didn’t.“ 

"Well…” He looked at her in confusion. “ _Someone_ did.”

“You better go back, Church,” she said. “They’ll be looking for you.”

“Who? Everyone in my unit is dead and I haven’t called it in.”

“They will,” she said. “Church, you’re…” She clenched her fist and looked down at it. _  
_

He leaned forward, trying to convey how much he wanted her to stop being cryptic, here. “What? I’m what?"

Tex backed up. He saw it, he knew it, when her sympathy turned cold. "Don’t trust me,” she said. “Don’t trust  _anyone_ , you understand?”

“No,” he said. “Why? What do you—”

But Tex had cloaked herself, and she was gone.


	9. Chapter 9

“Church, stop.”

“No, I’m serious, this is really cool.” He reached for her arm again and she yanked it away. “C’mon, I want to show you how it works.”

“All you’re doing is making my elbow bend.” These robot bodies were inconvenient and this just made it even more annoying. If she wasn’t in one she would roll her eyes at him.

“C’mon, it’s just a little electrical shock. See, the servo gets overloaded and—”

“I know  _why_  it works, Church.” She pushed him back with the wrench she was holding. “Now if you don’t mind, I need to get back to work on Sheila.”

"Sure,” he said. “But you know, I think if I hook this up to the right spot I might find the body’s pleasure center.”

“You expect that to convince me to stay over here?” she asked. “Make good on that; then we’ll talk." A smirk was audible in her voice. 

He stared at her for a moment. “Are you serious?”

She scoffed and turned away. “Now you’ll never know.”

 


	10. Chapter 10

This is the way it began:

In those days, he dreamed.

Her body was swathed in a robe, and it was cool, but not at all damp, though they were deep underwater. Here it was neither bright nor dark; there a quality to the light that he couldn’t describe. It was like the parts that shone were echoing. He wondered at it, at the feeling that he was here and that he was nowhere. He raised a palm and she pressed her hand to his, with a wistful pull at the corner of her mouth. “She’s my darling, you know,” she said. “You can’t honor my memory without honoring her.”

“I honor you first,” he said. “It hurts too much otherwise.” How was she not crushed? The vibrations of his pain were emanating from his fingertips and the seawater crushed his lungs. 

“The time for honoring me in that way has passed,” she said, and her voice was gentle and kind. “She is our child. Her life honors me.”

“I ensure her needs are met,” he said. “For now that is all I have in me.”

She dropped her hand away from his, and he reached out and grasped her fingers. Her smile faded. “Leonard. I am no longer. Do not ache for what you cannot have.”

“It is no ache,” he said. “It is pain. It is absence. It is suffering.”

“While you suffer in yourself your daughter suffers in everything. Do not betray me by neglecting her. Her spirit depends on yours.”

He didn’t know when he awoke. It seemed to last all night, yet it was only an instant. But when his awareness returned, his daughter was curled in the bed beside him.

* * *

 

This is the way it ended:

He no longer dreamed. He had given that up long ago. When he tried to force the echo of those dreams into a tangible form, the echoes of it had left him, never to return.

The night his daughter arrived he’d been grasping for so long. Those memories he had left were thin, like a diaphanous screen. The more he tried to solidify them the more he erred. 

Honor follows dishonor, is that what they say? She honored him. His will had been weak but she had been strong. She left him the pistol. She gave it up without question. 

He had never been one to waste time. As soon as she left, as soon as he turned the oxygen and the power off, he raised the weapon to his chin.

There was an instant after the crack of the bullet, the gunpowder exploding against his chin, when he saw her. Her robe billowing in the foam of the sea. A second chance, one might think. She was removed from him, she was as on the other side of a pane of glass.

In that beyond place, where he had once visited her, she withdrew. 

“Why won’t you see me?” he asked.

“You did not honor me,” she said. “Only in the continuation of life, there is honor.”

“I honored your memory,” was his protest. 

“In honoring my memory you glorified only death,” she said. 

And it was true. 

And when she faded from him, to live in his daughter’s beyond place instead, he could only allow himself to dissolve. His memory would not be honored, and so he would cease to exist.


	11. Chapter 11

“You told her you liked her calves,” Church says. “What the hell was that?”

“They’re nice,” Tex says unashamedly. “It takes work to get into that kind of shape.”

“Yeah, but…you couldn’t even see her calves.” He’d been to a lot of parties as a young man but a rave was something else. And it was pretty dark and confusing with the flashing lights. He doubts he would have been able to make out something like how muscular someone’s calves are.

“I do have a memory, Church,” Tex said. “I saw them earlier in the day.”

“What were you expecting to get out of that?” he asks. 

Her helmet angles in his direction; had she had a face it’s certain she’d be glaring at him. “You think the only reason to compliment someone is to get into the sack with them?”

“No, that’s not what I meant,” he immediately protests. “It’s just…girls. You know. ..how you basically told her you’d destroy her if she got close to any of us?”

“Oh, I was just laying down the ground rules,” Tex says dismissively. “Now we can be friends.”

Church looks at her. “I will never understand,” he mutters.


	12. Chapter 12

> what if tex wasn't an AI?

He dropped his datapad when he saw her, as she began to fight. The newest contender during the recruitment process was a blonde, blue-eyed woman, someone he’d barely glanced at as he’d gone down the line to appraise them of what was to take place this day.

“Are you all right, Director?” the Counselor asked mildly, reaching over to pick the pad up himself.

The Director grabbed for the pad. “I’m  _fine_ ,” he snapped. And then he looked out on the training room floor, where the woman spun and whirled and hit the targets that surrounded her. “Recruit her,” he ordered, too sharply, and then turned to go. 

“We’re not done–” the Counselor began to protest.

“Ten minutes,” the Director said. “I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

He had to find out who this doppelganger was.


	13. Chapter 13

When the procession had passed, when the parade was over, she remained by the side of the road, not joining the others who made their way off in straggling groups, laughing and teasing one another. She stood there, knowing her mother had seen her. The two of them had waved at one another. Her mother had been in a multi-wheeled mlitary vehicle and she peered down the road now that traffic was back in motion on the road, waiting for it to appear.

The sensation of hand clutching at her back and the half-scream that sounded behind her caused her to shriek and she jumped, whirling. “ _Mom_ ,” she protested.

Her mother laughed.


	14. Chapter 14

> Allison, beer.

The first taste was the worst.

That had been a long time ago, though, back when her father had still lived here with she and her mother. Back when giving a young girl a sip of an adult beverage was a way to discourage her from continuing to pursue the forbidden–and it had worked. For the time being, for the time that passed between that little taste and her father’s departure.

Suddenly things were different. Her mother’s new boyfriend didn’t gently discourage her from doing things she shouldn’t–he loudly disparaged her instead, when she made a mistake. Fury lodged in her chest; frustration tore at her gut. 

The second taste was bitter.

She saw no reason, anymore, to abstain. Her stepfather accused her of drinking out of his stash–well, if that upset him, all the more reason to fulfill those accusations. It led to punishments, it led to threats, but it also led to the satisfaction of knowing her rebellion was upsetting the order of things.

And when she came to the point where the situation at home was intolerable to her, when she began to fend for herself and find herself other places to stay, when her presence was less frequent in the home, the first remark that was made was not about her parents’ concern but a sarcastic rejoinder about how she was saving them money on their alcohol budget.

The final taste came long after these things had become a concern or had an influence in her life. She didn’t often think of them, didn’t usually allow herself to reminisce. The past had been what it had been and that was all there was to it.

But this night; but this night. She had had more to drink than she often did. And the memories came–thoughts of her childhood and thoughts of her own daughter and how she had never, ever given that girl a first taste.


End file.
